Talk:Fifty Shades Darker (book)/@comment-5398125-20120813153625
I did go through a relationship with a person who was a diagnosed NPD - much of the controlling and charming was like in these books. We did not get to S/M (I quit faster) but there was enormous emotional and mental abuse with a lot of grooming (see first link above). He initially pretended to be the (damaged&sensitive) prince on the white horse (they profile you based on your attitude towards and opinion about men&life and then pretend to be that person) with warm and caring eyes and by when I found out who he really was (one woman died because of him, he kept 5-6 in a harem partly by blackmailing them or by lieing to them, his look often went empty and dead and in one case he poisoned me – I had high fever and was delirious for 2 days, he did not take me to hospital despite my wish, and most disgustingly he was also interested in small girls and boys), it was too late. I had 2 nervous breakdowns and lost a year from my life just with the recovery. My smile and my life will never be the same as before. After I broke up with him, he started to stalk me and even gave scary calls to my parents in the middle of the night. I did my homework and read all I could about such sick f*cks because there are many of them unfortunately. When you are in love, all you want is to save the person, to get the guy back who he initially was (which sic is a nonexistent person - a terrible revelation to accept) and hence save the relationship. One of the major flaws of the books that this seems possible. Imagine that you pretend for a day that you are Santa Claus and next day you go back to your normal state. And that while you are pretending you are Santa Claus, a guy/girl falls in love with you and when you want to go back to normal she/he is shocked and demands Santa back forever and not your own self. You could not & would not want to do it, right? Sociopaths have no intention to do that for their victim either. Both Santa and the charming prince are fake personas and both deceive the other person. The difference is that while you are originally a genuine and good person who does not want to hurt anyone (you just enjoyed playing Santa for a day), these people's original self is abusive, repulsive, and no person in their right mind would want to partner with them if they saw that first. They KNOW this, so they intentionally and immorally use the fake persona for as long as it takes for you to fall in love with it - after which the abuse starts escalating. Oh, and sociopaths and paedophiles actually play on the victim's empathy/pity for them, often lying about their childhood abuse that is also romanticised in this book. SOME of them were really abused but also there are many people who were abused, raped, not loved etc. as a kid and do NOT become such sadistic, controlling sickos.